new anarchist faq

A New Anarchist FAQ – An Introduction to Anarchy in the 21st Century (2025) by raddle collective

via 62 pg kindle version from anarchist library [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/a-new-anarchist-faq-an-introduction-to-anarchy-in-the-21st-century]

notes/quotes:

4

What is Anarchy?

Anarchy is the *rejection of all institutions and doctrines that seek to impose rule. It is a life of autonomy and self-determination. Anarchy is not theoretical, nor hypothetical. It is not a hope for an imagined future, it is here and now. It is a living and breathing praxis. It is a path of defiance we create for ourselves in spite of constant subjugation.

*any form of re ness as cancerous distraction

Anarchy is an endeavor to *carve out pockets of life free from exploitation and suffering. It is actively **working to end authoritarian relations wherever they exist, and building non-authoritarian alternatives. There is no end-goal to anarchy. It is not a prescribed way of life for an imagined people in an imagined place and time, but the experiments of countless generations of disparate people who aren’t happy being forced to submit to their supposed superiors, people who aren’t willing to accept that a life spent toiling to enrich others represents any kind of “freedom”.

*part\ial ness is killing us .. keeping us from us.. by **perpetuating same song

“Anarchy is the thing we want. It is the Beautiful Idea. It is the entirely impractical idea that we can be, and must insist on being, totally free. From domination, of course, but also from mundanity and morality. It is the id to the super-ego of society and its shaming, fear-instilling humiliations and self-inflicted limitations.

only if sans any form of m\a\p

Anarchy is an act of faith—a leap into the unknown—and a totally sober proposition. It is an explosion and the simple things we do unconsciously. It is something that predates civilization and cannot be tamed by cities, governments, exchange, or politics.

only if it’s all

Anarchy is anarchy, it is both organization (along completely different lines than the ones that currently exist on a broad level), and chaos. It is each of us having the ability to determine our own lives and the ways that we relate to others, from our most intimate relationships to the more far-flung. Anarchy is impossible and it is that very impossibility that makes it desirable. As desirable as the eventual lover or the water at the end of a long hike. As impossible as independence, autonomy, and collaboration among equals.

Long Live Anarchy!” — anonymous

1st part explains ziqness. ie: pocket ness. but 2nd part can’t be if not all

5

(under what is archy)

Similarly, an individual using force to strike a blow at the system of authority that oppresses them does not turn the individual into an authority.

hmm.. to me.. it actually does.. any form of m\a\p does

Authority is not simply an isolated instance of the use of force, but an ongoing social relationship between two parties. It is a relationship where one party has the socially legitimized right to command, and the other party has the corresponding obligation to obey.

never isolated ness..

Destroying archy where you see it does not create archy, it creates anarchy.

rather.. again.. it perpetuates the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. [again].. for (blank)’s sake..

6

from sub media ‘This is because from its very beginnings, the concept of liberty has existed within a framework of European global conquest, a process facilitated by colonialism, slavery and genocide. ‘

rather.. because part\ial ness.. ooof

Liberty comes with conditions: you’re allowed certain rights as long as you obey laws and accept the authority of the state. Autonomy rejects that setup entirely. It says: you don’t need rulers to tell you what rights you have—you already have the power to decide things for yourself and with others.

but rather.. are perpetuating it if still deciding ness et al.. how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..

Autonomy is both individual and collective. *In the individual sense, it means you can make choices about your life without external control or having to obey the will of authority figures who always put their interests before yours. In the collective sense, autonomy means groups of people make decisions together on matters that affect them collectively.

but already cancerous distraction.. already authority ness over you if *

With anarchism, you can’t really have one without the other. Autonomous communities are made up of individuals who freely choose to work together. In anarchist thought, individual and collective autonomy are inseparable—you can’t truly have one without the other. Autonomous collectives are formed by autonomous individuals who choose to collaborate in pursuit of shared goals. Outside of such collective structures, practicing real individual autonomy is incredibly difficult—not only because those in power actively work to suppress it, but also because humans are fundamentally social beings. Unless you’re completely isolated from society, like living alone in a remote cabin, your freedom depends on the freedom of those around you.

takes a lot of work ness as red flag

7

Some examples of Autonomy:

  • A feminist collective organizing its own campaigns without relying on NGOs or politicians to give them their marching orders.
  • A neighborhood assembly of residents resisting gentrification by making decisions about housing and land use themselves, rather than obeying the will of property developers and landlords.
  • A tribe in the Amazon that refuses to receive missionaries, conform to European social mores or accept the laws of the state that claims ownership over their land.

own campaigns?..

These are all examples of people creating systems of power and decision-making that belong to them, and work for them, not imposed from above in order to benefit capitalists and their enforcers.

perhaps work for them in sea world.. but not about legit free peopl

Autonomy challenges the idea that we need to be ruled by people who supposedly are more qualified than us to determine our needs. It’s about reclaiming control over our lives—not through asking for rights from powerful entities, but by organizing ourselves and taking direct responsibility for how we live, play, relate, and co-exist.

oi..

Or put more simply: Do you really need someone sitting in a palace or parliament in a faraway city telling you what you can or can’t do, what your goals are, and how to achieve those goals?

all.. all ies of not free ness

8-9

What is Mutual Aid?

Mutual aid is the principle of people working together to solve problems for the benefit of everyone involved. It’s about cooperation, not competition—helping each other out because we all do better when we support one another.

While mutual aid has existed for as long as human society—and is found throughout nature—anarchists emphasize it as a core principle for how society should be organized. The Russian anarchist and biologist Pyotr Kropotkin made this argument in 1902, in his book Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution, when he challenged the dominant view of evolution among his peers in the scientific community as a brutal competition among people for power (“survival of the fittest”).

Instead, he showed that cooperation within and between species actually offers a major evolutionary advantage and is a more sustainable form of social organization than the winner-takes-all competition envisioned by capitalism. Using the scientific method, Kropotkin demonstrated that species that were able to work together, or who formed symbiotic arrangements with other species based on mutual benefit, were able to better adapt to their environment, and were granted a competitive edge over those species who didn’t, or couldn’t.

Capitalism organizes human activity around profit, often through coercion—like forcing people to work or go hungry. Mutual aid, by contrast, organizes activity around human need and collective care. It is a wholesale rejection of capitalism’s competitive, profit-driven systems. Capitalism can’t or won’t solve problems like global poverty, exploitation of workers and environmental collapse. Mutual aid offers a different path where people come together without expecting profit and hierarchical power, simply to support each other and improve life for all.

In modern civilization, we’re taught to see ourselves as independent and self-reliant—living in our own apartments, managing personal bank accounts, signing a smartphone contract, and carefully curating individual identities on social media. But this idea of personal independence is largely an illusion. It’s a narrative promoted by governments and corporations to shape us into isolated, manageable and commodified consumers focused on short-term gratification.

In reality, human beings are deeply interdependent—and that interdependence has always been central to our survival and progress as a species.

Take a moment to consider: where does your food come from? Your clothing? The materials that make up your home or your car? Most of us rely on vast, complex systems of labor, infrastructure, and global supply chains to meet even our basic needs. Without these systems, very few people today could last a week, let alone manufacture the commodities we depend on daily.

Some examples of Mutual Aid in the World Today:

  • People organizing relief efforts after disasters like Hurricane Katrina
  • Community-run child care co-ops
  • The global Food Not Bombs volunteer organization that feeds the hungry using food that would otherwise be discarded
  • Open-source software communities
  • Volunteers risking their lives to help others in war zones (like the White Helmets in Syria or Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders)

Mutual aid is the basic foundation for building social relations based on solidarity, not control or coercion. Mutual aid is the belief—and the practice—that we survive and thrive through cooperation, not competition. It’s a practical, ethical, and political alternative to systems based on hierarchy, profit, and control.

bits showing ma as pst.. fixing/bandaiding cage et al

10

What is Direct Action?

Direct action is the choice people make to take political action themselves, directly addressing an issue without waiting for higher authorities like politicians, courts, police, social workers or bureaucrats to act. Direct action can be taken either by an individual or a group of people who share the same immediate goal.

Instead of asking for permission, voting for a representative, protesting or lobbying for change, people undertake the action themselves—whether that’s blocking a harmful development project such as a pipeline, squatting a building to counter private property relations, using graffiti to stave off gentrification, sabotaging a hostile workplace, neutralizing a rapist or dismantling a private health insurance company. It’s one of the main ways anarchists put our values of autonomy, self-organization and mutual aid into practice.

By engaging in direct action, people reject the idea that a government or state has the exclusive right to make decisions for communities and instead assert their own autonomy and freedom to determine their own fate—often setting a powerful example for others to follow.

For instance, instead of lobbying a politician to oppose a pipeline or trusting regulatory agencies to intervene, supporters of direct action may choose to physically obstruct construction of the pipeline themselves, seeing it as a more immediate, effective and empowering way to create social change.

1p.. aka: re ness.. oooof.. 2p.. pst ness.. et al.. last 2fps

add to pst pg ies: ma, da, from this book pg 8-12

13-4

What is Praxis?

A question you’ll often get when you attempt to discuss anarchism with people new to these ideas is how practical is anarchy? How can anarchy be demonstrated to me in a way that I can appreciate its effectiveness? Nothing is more effective in demonstrating the value of anarchy than praxis.

Praxis is when anarchists apply theory to practice through direct action, collective effort, and grassroots initiatives. It emphasizes the importance of lived experience, immediate action, and the continuous interplay between reflection and practice to challenge and dismantle oppressive structures. For anarchists, praxis is not merely about theoretical discussions, but about embodying principles such as autonomy, mutual aid, and self-organization in everyday life, aiming to create a liberated life through participatory and decentralized methods.

Praxis is any action that embodies and realizes anarchist theory. It’s a valuable method for creating awareness of anarchist causes and building solidarity in your community.

Examples of praxis:

  • Setting up a “Food Not Bombs” chapter in your community.
  • Squatting an unused building to provide a safe space for homeless people.
  • Guerilla gardening.
  • Setting up a free shop that people can freely take what they need from.
  • Building community gardens to feed and engage the community.
  • Preparing free meals for homeless people.
  • Helping people install a free and open source operating system and the Tor browser for privacy and security.
  • Converting old combustion-engine cars to electric.
  • Make a zine/informational about an important topic.
  • Creating memes from an Anarchist perspective.
  • Assassinating dictators.
  • Creating an autonomous zone.
  • Horizontal community public safety organizing to replace the police.
  • Teaching people how to steal from the rich effectively.
  • Creating a space online where Anarchists can share their ideas with each other.
  • Aiding in defending indigenous sovereignty.
  • Being support for people suffering from addictions, and helping them be on a healthy path they want to be on.
  • Stopping pipelines from being built.
  • Investigating history, and appreciating the context for how you have come to be.
  • Identifying privileges caused by being a part of a white-supremacist, hetero-normative, patriarchal, trans-phobic, classist, state controlled labor farm.
  • Calling out problematic behaviour in comrades, no matter their status in the group.
  • Teaching people to be self sufficient by gardening, foraging and upcycling.
  • Starting an anarchist bike collective to fix people’s bikes.
  • Making anarchist music that shines a light on injustices in the world.
  • Setting up a community mesh-net to share data with people in a decentralized manner.

list made me excited.. and laugh.. ooooof.. couple not even praxi ness.. ooof

15

One of the most important things anarchists need to get across is that worthwhile transformation can only be achieved through direct action outside of and against the state, parliamentary democracy and the various structures of class collaboration, and that means questioning the left vs right thing, which only serves to cement the state’s dominance over our lives.

A far more useful distinction than left vs. right is authority vs. anti-authority. Anarchy has nothing of substance in common with authoritarians, with governmentalists, with those who desire to dominate and rule us, because anarchy is a completely different animal than anything envisioned by the left (or the right) wing of the state. We speak an entirely different language.

While the left attempts to organize people in order to cement left-wing state power, in order to reform the state to better suit the interests of the left, anarchists attempt to escape all domination and control, to abolish the government, political parties, the state, its borders and military and all kinds of power hierarchy.

Anarchy isn’t simply another cog in the politics machine, it’s the anti-politics. We reject everything politics represents.

“Although anarchists differ in their ideas of the tactics to be used in achieving social change, they are united in regarding themselves as apolitical or even anti-political.”

16

A lifetime of daily propaganda by the state and its media apparatus separating people into 2 opposing factions: left Vs. right, has a way of become ingrained in the collective consciousness. Parting psychologically with this meticulously manufactured tribalism is no easy feat. The advertised left wing identity of social responsibility, ethics, diversity, inclusion and a dedication to equality is not something that’s easy to part with, despite it being a largely fictional construct: which is constantly proven when the left wing parties get their turn to be in power and quickly increase austerity, imperialism, war, surveillance, mass-incarceration and corruption.

The state wants us to view the world in left/right binary terms in order to uphold the representative democracy system that sustains the state and keeps us separated into haves and have-nots, rulers and obeyers, while allowing the wealthy to loot our resources and steadily criminalize our very existence.

17

Free speech is a lie told to us by our rulers to convince us we need to be ruled by them.

18

Unfortunately, some people insist on using bigoted or otherwise oppressive language in anarchist spaces, claiming that free speech allows them to do so. Since we’ve established that free speech is nothing more than an insipid lie our rulers tell us in order to control us, it’s important that we reject the dishonest language of the state when talking about anarchy, and take a long hard look at the reasons someone would have for clinging to the state’s shrewd promises of “rights” and “freedoms” that simply don’t exist.

So let’s talk about the people who enter anarchist spaces, direct slurs and hateful bigoted rhetoric at us, and then insist we accept their abuse because they have the sacred right to freedom of speech… These people simply have no understanding of anarchy. Their “right to free speech” that they insist we respect could only be granted to them by a state with a monopoly on violence. If someone comes into your space and calls you a racial slur, no institution should have the power to stop you from showing that person the door.

It takes an incredibly sheltered person to believe there should be no consequences for abuse. When someone is abusing you or people you care about, you should absolutely be free to take a stand and remove them from your space, no matter how many times the person cries “free speech” as they’re telling you you’re a worthless (slur).

The “freedom” to scapegoat, demonize and demean people who are different from you really stands in direct contradiction with anarchy. Discriminating against people based on ability, race, gender or sexuality creates authority. It makes you an authoritarian. Your rhetoric directly alienates the people who belong to the groups you’re choosing to look down on in disgust and present as less-than human. By using demeaning language to chastise marginalized people for their perceived inadequacies, you’re upholding normative social roles, creating classes and subclasses and strengthening the authoritarian power structures that directly oppress any people that belong to minority groups.

Anarchists can and will choose to not associate with people that claim they have a right to oppress others. Anarchists are anti-authoritarian to our core, and this means we don’t have to put up with hateful bigots in our spaces.

left off top 20

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